


Love (The More Specific Kind)

by KLStarre



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bodyswap, Established Relationship, First Kiss, M/M, Mutual Pining, Second Kiss, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 22:23:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: "You don't have a side, anymore. Neither of us do. We're on our side."





	Love (The More Specific Kind)

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly TV-verse, but Crowley has white wings, because...it's an objectively better canon.
> 
> Also, sorry if my continuity is off; I know the book like the back of my hand but haven't fully memorized the show yet.
> 
> Wrote this while listening to this playlist, which isn't technically Good Omens but might as well be: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/528sARjnVgO3D8RYtejOJv?si=yeqpcp-wTSakW0R-xzRIag

 

Aziraphale went home with Crowley. It was that simple, after all of these millennia of equivocating and insisting that he couldn’t, because someone would see and stop him and then there would be Hell[[1]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327282#work_endnotes) to pay. It turned out, no one except him cared at all.

            The bus ride to Crowley’s flat was nearly silent. The two of them sat side by side, but, in Aziraphale’s mind at least, they were hundreds of miles apart. They had won. They had _won_. But the thing was, winning didn’t really mean anything, did it? Aziraphale could handle knowing that Heaven was after him, could survive the thought of whatever righteous fury they would rain down on him, but the idea that Crowley would be…well, in Hell, just didn’t bear thinking about.

            The bus pulled up right in front of the building, which was not usually how buses worked, but Aziraphale was genuinely tired for the first time in his existence, and Heaven wasn’t going to care about one more miracle.

            They had enough to worry about.

            It was only once they had both, still in silence, gotten off the bus, taken the lift up three floors, and were standing in front of the door, that Aziraphale realized he had never been here before. Crowley was at his bookshop constantly, closed or open, convenient or otherwise, but he had never invited Aziraphale back to his place. “I’ve never been here,” Aziraphale said out loud, as the door swung open. His voice was loud in the darkness, and Crowley didn’t respond until they had stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind them, the only light dim and clearly meant to do nothing more than keep burglars away. Aziraphale was very aware of the way the shadows fell over Crowley’s face, of the way his eyes, sunglasses removed, pierced the darkness. He wished he weren’t. He was still, very intensely, trying to convince himself that if everything he and Crowley had done was an accident, really, then Heaven would leave him alone[[2]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327282#work_endnotes).

            “Would you have come, if I had invited you?” Crowley asked, ahead of him in the hallway and barely looking back, forcing Aziraphale to follow him into a sitting room. The question sounded bitter, but Crowley’s voice wasn’t angry, just matter of fact. Just…resigned. The light, as the demon hit the switch, was blinding.

            Would he have? Probably not. Aziraphale stood there, in the middle of the room, quiet. He knew he should say something. He just didn’t know what. For so long, he’d been so sure of what to do, and what to say, because Heaven was strict, and he was an angel, and…well, his only friend was a demon. So maybe he hadn’t been as sure of what to do as he had thought.

            “I’m sorry,” he said, but it came out as a question, and Crowley flopped onto a black, leather couch, placing sunglasses which had appeared out of nowhere on his eyes.

            “I don’t have a guest room. You can have my bed, if you want, it’s right down the hall,” and he pointed down another hallway.

            “Did you hear me?” Aziraphale asked, feeling awkward, now, still standing. There was a chair, right next to him, also upholstered in black leather[[3]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327282#work_endnotes), but he didn’t want to sit.

            “Yes, I heard you. What do you want me to do about it?” This was meaner than Crowley was, usually, which struck Aziraphale as an odd observation. He had never…noticed, really, how kindly Crowley treated him. He had just taken it for granted. Had taken it for granted that the progenitor of ancestral sin would miracle away stains on his clothing for him.

            “I don’t – I don’t want you to do anything about it. But I am sorry. I’m sorry that I’ve spent four thousand years acting like you were below me, somehow, even though if you hadn’t talked me into raising that boy, Armageddon would have come and gone without anything to stop it.” Aziraphale wished Crowley had left his sunglasses off, because he had never quite gotten the hang of human-shaped body language, but he could read Crowley’s eyes like a book of prophecy.

            “I think you’re giving us a little too much credit.”

            “You know what I mean.’

            There was a pause, and down on the street, a car went by, and then another. It was one A.M., maybe two. It didn’t matter.

            “Yeah. I do.”

            There was something more that needed to be said. Something that could bridge the gap of thousands of years of being loved and yet, still, pushing away. He knew that, suddenly: knew that Crowley had been loving him, and that he had been unable to acknowledge it. He wanted to blame Heaven, wanted to tell himself that Heaven was good for generalized love but not the specific kind, not really, but if Heaven was bad at specific love, then what did that make Hell? No, this was on him.

            It had been a long week.

            “You love me,” he said, but no, that wasn’t it, that wasn’t what he meant, even though Crowley let out a short bark of laughter and took the sunglasses off, turning to look at him again.

            “I sure do,” Crowley responded, before Aziraphale could make another attempt. And then, gentler, “It’s okay. Like I said, I’m unforgivable, me. I get it.”

             “No, I – ” Aziraphale took a step forward, towards Crowley, just as he’d always done. He wanted to tell Crowley once again that he forgave him, but he was realizing more and more that there wasn’t anything, really, to forgive. So instead he said what he’d known for nearly a century, but never been able to admit, not even to himself. “I love you.”

            Crowley sat up, still on the couch, but leaning forward. “Don’t – don’t do this, angel.” The way he said ‘angel’ was so, so tender. So, so afraid.

            “Who’s going to stop me? We’re both going to die, anyway, as soon as Heaven and Hell catch up to us. I love you. Who’s going to stop me?” Aziraphale could barely process what he was saying as it escaped his mouth. He could hear his pulse raging in his ears, something he’d never been aware of before that moment because, really, he rarely had a pulse, and he certainly didn’t need one. He shut it off. He wanted to hear Crowley, not his own body slowly giving up on him.

            Crowley stood up. Aziraphale didn’t move. “Who’s going to stop you? What if I do? What if I say I’d rather not get my heart broken in addition to being permanently tortured for eternity, thank you very much?”

            “Are you going to?” Crowley was close enough to him now that Aziraphale had to tilt his head slightly to look him in the eyes. Aziraphale added a “my dear?” for good measure, and suddenly they are standing toe to toe.

            “No.” Crowley’s eyes dilated as he responded, and Aziraphale could have sworn he heard a slight hiss.

            They kissed. It was that simple. No explosions, no Metatron descending from on high to smite them. Aziraphale wasn’t sure which of them initiated it, but he was sure that his hands were in Crowley’s ridiculous, ridiculous hair, and Crowley’s hands were on his back, and Crowley had no body heat but didn’t feel cold, and Crowley’s teeth were sharper than they’d seemed since Eden, and he was pulling Crowley to him like he needed him in order to breathe except, of course, he didn’t need to breathe.

            There were no explosions, and no Metatron descending from on high to smite them, but it was a kiss that had been six thousand years coming, and so it wasn’t that simple, really. Six thousand years of being enemies, in a way that was closer to being friends, really, and closer to being lovers than anything else, did _something_ that was impossible to describe[[4]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327282#work_endnotes).

            It wasn’t until they had finally pulled apart, both of their wings unintentionally stretched out, long and white, and Aziraphale’s head was resting on Crowley’s shoulder, that he noticed that there was something different. He smelled, suddenly, like Aziraphale’s new cologne.

            Aziraphale stepped back, wings folding themselves neatly into his back, and looked Crowley in the eyes. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, dear.”

            Crowley, who had been about to protest against being abandoned, returned his stare. “Huh.”

            There was no elegant way to put it. Their bodies had been swapped, clothes and all. Crowley was now blonde and wearing not a single black accessory, and, from what Aziraphale could tell from looking down at himself, he was slightly taller, slightly leaner, and in all black.

            “Do you think if we do it again we’ll switch back?” Crowley asked, sounding at the very least mostly serious.

            Aziraphale shrugged, and leaned forward again. This kiss was gentler, less of a ‘please, let me make sure you can tell how much I love you, because I’ve been holding it in for as long as I’ve existed and it’s killing me’ and more of an ‘I am so, so sorry for all of our lost years’. Aziraphale ran his fingers through the feathers on Crowley’s right wing[[5]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327282#work_endnotes)and felt him shiver slightly, and smile against his mouth. If Heaven was against this then, honestly, Heaven could go to Hell.

            Eventually, they separated again, and looked each other in the eyes once more. Nothing had changed. They were still in the wrong bodies. There was silence for one long minute, and then for another. Eventually, Crowley, looking for all the world like Aziraphale, shrugged. “Well, no use wondering. It’s been a weird week. Come to sleep, angel, maybe it’ll be fixed in the morning.”

            Aziraphale didn’t even question being invited to Crowley’s room. Neither of them wanted to be alone.

∞

            It was only hours later, when Crowley was asleep on his chest, that Aziraphale realized something and sat bolt upright. “Agnes…” he whispered to himself, over the sound of Crowley’s uninterrupted snoring, and grinned.

            They had survived a lot, over the years, Aziraphale thought to himself as he curled himself around Crowley. Who was to say they couldn’t survive this?

 

**Author's Note:**

> [1]Or Heaven, as the case may be.
> 
> [2]At this point, he was doing his level best not to think about what Hell would do to Crowley. Maybe if he disassociated himself from it as much as possible, it wouldn’t happen.
> 
> [3]It is important to note that Crowley did not, in fact, actually like black leather furniture. However, he also did not, in fact, spend any time here, and so had opted for aesthetics over actual personal comfort.
> 
> [4]This isn’t entirely true. It is definitely possible to describe, it would just take another six thousand years.
> 
> [5]Which was, technically, Aziraphale’s wing at this point, but it didn’t do to get caught up in technicalities.


End file.
